


Severe Clear

by dorkilysoulless (custodian)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: College AU, M/M, stormchaser AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 03:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2175642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/custodian/pseuds/dorkilysoulless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel loves tornadoes.  Dean loves the chase.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Severe Clear

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a fill for [Hellatus Prompt Fic Tuesday](http://itfeltpurefic.tumblr.com/hellatus) on my Tumblr blog.

“Well. Would’ja look at that,” Dean says as the Impala eases to a stop. “Severe fucking clear.”

Castiel sighs and peers out at the sky. It’s an undeniably beautiful blue with only a faint hint of thin cirrus clouds to adorn it. 

“Pretty sure that sky’s not going to cloud up with you staring up at it, Cas.”

He sighs and digs his tablet out of his backpack. He opens couple of apps: radar data, local conditions, etc. It’s hard to pay attention to them, though, with Dean watching him. 

“What’s the data say? We miss it?”

“I don’t know yet. Hang on.”

Dean huffs, crosses his arms. Uncrosses them. Leans out his window to glare at the sky.

Dean’s a driver. He’s in it for the adrenaline. He cares about the art and science of hunting storms in the sense that those things bring him closer to danger, but not in their own right. He is iron and petroleum and blood and earth.

Castiel? Castiel is sky. 

For as long as he can remember he’s loved storms. There’s something in the wind and the pelt of rain, the electricity in the air. The roil of clouds as they churn and rip apart move him so desperately he’d failed utterly to choose between photography and meteorology. 

“Conditions are still potentially favorable in the area,” he says, finally, and passes the tablet over to Dean. “That cold front is what we want to move. If it nails this nice warm air and inverts—”

“Yeah, if.”

He frowns and takes the tablet back. Glares at it. “Yes, of course. It’s uncertain.”

“Right,” Dean says and shoves a pair of sunglasses on his face, then shifts so he can rest his head against the top of the bench seat. “Tell me when it gets a little more certain.”

“Sure.” 

He grabs his camera bag and climbs out of the car. At the very least he can get some art shots while they wait to see if a storm is going to happen. 

They’re parked on a gravel road flanked by fenced fields, not too different from the ones on the outskirts of his hometown of Pontiac. It’s familiar and uncomfortable all at once. He’d left for college as soon as he could, and while Lawrence wasn’t exactly the kind of city Castiel eventually saw himself in — he’d originally had his sights set on Chicago when KU offered him a scholarship on the strength of his portfolio and promises of maybe getting into the MFA program if he did well in the undergraduate program — a college town of eighty thousand was a damn sight better than where he’d started.

Gravel crunches under his boots as he walks. He reaches into his bag, pulls the body of his camera out, and loops the strap over his neck before reaching in for his kit lens. He checks it over, fixes it to the body of the camera, and then takes a couple of warm-up shots of a trio of unimpressed-looking cows.

Which, fair enough. Castiel’s not particularly impressed with them either.

He turns onto a dirt track that veers from the main road and wanders, seeing mostly just through the camera eye rather than his own. He loses track of time, and is almost irritated when his phone alert startles away the rabbit he’s been trying to get a clear shot of.

The irritation fades when he sees the message on his screen: severe thunderstorm warning for the next county. Hail predicted. Favorable for strong winds and possible tornadoes. 

Castiel grins, packs up his camera, and runs back up the trail. 

# # #

Dean’s confused for a moment — waking up from a decidedly sexual dream to a sweaty, dishevelled Cas shouting something about “storm” and “county” and “tornadic” is disorienting on about fifty different levels — but after a second sentences start to string together.

“…the GPS, so you’ll want to turn around in the road and head south.” 

“Turn around. South. Right.” Dean sits up and fires up his Baby’s engine. 

Chasing in the Impala is…well, it is what it is. She’s his prized possession, and more home than anyplace he’s ever lived, and driving her into fucking hail and high winds is stupid as hell — Sam sure as hell questioned it when he found out — but the idea of going into life or death without her just seems wrong. If Dean’s going to go out, he’s going out with his Baby, and that’s that. If he’s got to fix her or repaint her or rebuild her, fine. She’s heavy, has a sturdy wheel base, and is 100% badass.

He glances at Cas, whose whole attention is fixed on his tablet. He’s already prepped his camera — rain hood and everything — and can dedicate the drive to evaluating radar data, picking routes, and generally circling them ever closer to what will hopefully be the best possible vantage for the developing storm. 

Rain is already pelting down hard, and Dean hears the first tentative clicks of small hail.

“Okay, we need to move East. Take the next…no, second left.” 

“Got it.” 

He wonders, sometimes, what he’d be doing if he hadn’t met Cas on campus at the end of his freshman year. Cas was a five-year senior — doubling up a BFA in Expanded Media and a BS in Atmospheric Science was apparently not a fast track to anything — but they’d clicked on a fundamental level. Which, you know, probably makes sense given that their first meeting involved Cas pulling Dean out of a sewer access tunnel.

To this day neither of them knows how he got down there beyond the “too many purple nurples” part. Still, save a guy from the underworld, make a friend for life, you know? Doesn’t matter how he got there.

And okay, maybe he’d been lonely being away from his brother for the first time, and fucked up about being back in his hometown where his mother died, so he could have done worse than some weird-ass guy in a trenchcoat as a would-be guardian angel.

Three years later, they’re practically family.

So maybe that’s the real reason he comes out here with his Baby. Cas is a goddamn crazy genius and knows his shit. As long as they’re together, Dean knows everything’s going to be awesome because it’s Cas.

Hell never admit it, but with Cas graduating in May, Deans trying to spend all the time he can get with the guy before Cas hauls off and moves to a “real” city and leaves Dean behind. 

A gust of wind shoves the Impala hard. Dean compensates, but it’s enough to jar him back into the moment and Cas’ eyes off of his tablet.

“Funnel!”

“Shit yeah.” Dean’s jaw clenches into a crazed grin, because damn, that’s some hella rotation. He jams a tape — AC/DC’s Back in Black — into the deck and cranks the volume. “Grab your camera. I’ve got this.”

Dean accelerates, skids onto an abandoned access road to get them a better vantage as the tornado forms. He can see debris begin to rise before the darkened funnel visibly hits earth. Cas climbs into the back seat and goes full camera mode.

This is them, fully in their elements, and it’s badass. 

And then the second funnel drops behind them and the Impala loses traction. 

# # #

Castiel has always wanted to fly. 

He dreams often of having wings. Has even built them, even though they’re only for show. His entire MFA thesis project is fundamentally about angels, falling, and grace. Lots of photography. Lots of sculpture. Lots of being in the middle of both because with a name like his, why waste the opportunity?

Weightlessness in a car being whipped into the air was not what he had in mind. 

The moment stretches, and he is aware suddenly of his mortality, the frangibility of his equipment, and the peril this presents for Dean, who is almost certainly only fixed to his position in the vehicle by his hands on the steering wheel, and possibly a safety belt if he thought to fasten it when they caught sight of the first funnel.

The Impala strikes ground and rolls and time speeds up again. Castiel draws his knees to his chest, covers his head with his arms, and prays that neither of them crashes through a windshield. His body collides with something solid — the back of the front bench seat? — the floorboard, and finally the crumpled roof of the Impala as it skids to a stop upside down. 

It takes him a moment to regain his breath. “Dean!” he tries to shout, but either his voice has deserted him or the storm is too loud around them. 

Castiel untangles the strap of his ruined camera from his neck and pops the memory card free and shoves it in his pocket. He squirms along the roof to the front of the passenger cabin. Dean’s out cold, but belted in, thank god. His pulse is steady. He’s breathing. 

They have to get out of this car. 

The windshield’s shattered, but Castiel can tell they’ve landed in a field. That’s far from ideal, but he thinks he can make out a ditch about thirty or so yards out. It’s not great, but it’s safer than being rattled around in a metal box.

“Dean. Dean, wake up.” Castiel grabs Dean’s shoulder and gives it a shake. “Damn it, Dean.”

Dean’s eyelids flutter. He lets out a groan, makes a couple of words that aren’t quite words. 

“Come on. We have to go.” He kicks at the remains of the passenger window, then reaches up to help Dean disengage the buckle of his safety belt. They squeeze out through the window one at a time and into the thick, deep mud of the field. From there it’s a mad, stumbling, wounded scramble to the ditch. 

They sink into the muddy water together. They huddle together for warmth, and in an effort to shield themselves from a new round of hail.

And then Dean kisses him.

# # #

Cas looks startled when he pulls away, but under the circumstances Dean’s pretty sure he’s allowed not to care about the repercussions. His car’s totaled, he’s soaking wet and in the middle of nowhere, and there’s still at least one funnel out there still tearing shit up.

He doesn’t expect Cas to take his face in his hands and kiss him back, hard and sudden and clumsy like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted. 

“The fuck?” Dean gasps when they break away. 

“Um,” Cas says. “You, uh, started it?”

“No, dumbass. Why the fuck are we doing this in a wet fucking ditch?”

“Tornadoes?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “No, I mean the fuck didn’t you say something about, uh,” he gestures uselessly. “Kissing. Us. It’s been three years, man. We couldn’t have done this sooner?”

The look Cas gives him — eyes narrowed, head tilted in total incomprehension — is at once the most ridiculous and most perfect thing Dean has ever seen.

“Dude, just shut up and kiss me again.”

Cas blinks. “But I wasn’t tal—mmmph.”

Yeah, that clinches it, Dean thinks as their bodies tangle together in the mud, under pelting rain, half-deafened by the roar of the storm. 

Tornadoes are fucking awesome.


End file.
